Am i running too many lights?

[SAFFABOY]

I'm having a problem with dark brown algea and green algea in my tank.

The dark brown algea is only growing on the back glass.The green algea is growing on the surfaces of all my plants.It's got quite bad.Makes my plants look cra#@.

I run 5 15w flouro's on a 900x400 deep tank.Lights are on 11 hours a day.I have cut down to 10 hours,now.Am i running too many lights?

I want my beautiful plants back.

Any advice,pllleeeaaaaasssse

[DiverJohn]

HI Saffa,

I know how you feel, its a fine line getting your plants right and not having algae. SO heres my take anybody else feel free to correct me if i am wrong..

To answer your first question re: wattage. 5x15w is only 75W, on the face iof it this is OK. I am running 6x 30W on a 250ish litre tank.

You also need to consider the "rated temp" (the number with a K) and the age of the tubes. Over time the temperature output (colour) of the tubes changes. And not for the better

Typically expect a standard flouro to last 6-9 months, before the clour shift is detrimental. Also algae seem to LOVE old tubes, the clours are better for them to grow.

I have had a problems with algae and delt them in several ways.. try some of these..

1. decrease light to about 8 hours a day

2. Added ottocinclus

3. Soak some of the hardier plants in a solution of Aluminium Sulphate ($5 for 1kg from Nursery) for 1/2 an hour - rinse them in clean tap water and finally a rinse in tank water before replanting.

Soon i hope to be putting up a post about supplying tubes & electrical gear to my fish keeping mates , so PM me if you need any help in that respect.

HTH

John

[Warren]

Check your phosphate level. If you get a reading on the test kit it's too high...

Siamese Flying Fox's or Siamese Algae Eaters (not to be confused with Chinese Algae Eaters) are excellent on both those algae. I only use SAE's and have no visible algae at all in my planted tank.

You don't have too much light, just too many or unbalanced nutrients.

[DubbieBoy]

I'd agree with Warren; its not that there's too much light but that something else is out of whack. Is the tank sufficiently heavily planted? Are you adding CO2? I'd say you need to make sure that everything else (esp. CO2 and (macro)nutrients) is optimal so as to allow the plants to really use that light, o'wise they start to falter and the algae move in and take up residence... If there's too much of one particular nutrient present, it may be because something else is limiting and preventing it from being taken up.

If you're not already supplementing CO2 (but have high light levels), this is definitely the first thing to correct as without the CO2 the plants just can't make use of the light.

I would have though that brown algae were associated with lower light levels though...

And those SAEs (often sold/mislabelled as blackline flying foxes) do a great job on the green stuff...